(1961) The Chapman Report (45 page)

“How’s my honey child?” Wash was asking.

“I’m tired of waiting,” Naomi said.

“You don’t want to wait?”

“No. Now.”

He shook his head with admiration. “You’re something, honey.”

“Now,” she repeated.

“You know, you’re getting me excited. Maybe it can be arranged. You really want ol’ Wash, don’t you?”

She wanted calvary, the purge of pain, and the final nothingness. She nodded.

“Okay, honey, you got me.” He rose to his feet.

“Not jus’ you,” she said. “All.”

Wash whistled under his breath. “Christ.”

“All-” she insisted.

“Okay, honey, okay. Come on. Let’s get the show on the road.”

He helped her from the chair and led her across the slippery

dance floor. As they passed the bandstand where several of the boys were relaxing, smoking, he held up his hand, joining forefinger and thumb in a circle. He opened the side exit and started her along the edge of the parking lot beside the kitchen. “My car’s behind there,” he said, “all by itself.” “Where you taking me?” “Nowhere, honey. I got a nice private backseat.” She heard a motor behind, and stopped, and looked off toward the bright area nearer the street. The car was an MG. An attendant was holding a door open, and a girl stepped out. Her face was indistinct at the distance, but she was young, patting down her taffeta and petticoats, and holding her corsage of camellias, and her escort was young and straight. Later, at her door, they would kiss, and tomorrow she would build a dream house, a dream life, a dream universe of happiness. “Come on, honey. I got it bad now.”

Naomi stared at the hideous death head, and suddenly the revulsion filled her throat. She was alive, a living entity, and all around, all around, were the living, the fresh, clean, alive living, and they were the race to whom she belonged, they and not this gruesome skeleton. “No,” she said. “Come on.”

“No, not in the car. What do you think I am?” She pivoted uncertainly and tried to move away. Wash’s hand was on her arm and she winced. The lipless smile was gone. “You’re my girl, an’ you’re coming with me-so let’s not have any trouble.” Dignity, dignity. “Let go of me,” she said archly. “Look, honey, no little bitch is getting me hepped up, and taking a powder. This is the big leagues, honey. We deliver. You’re going with ol’ Wash-and the boys, the boys, too. I’m not letting them down for nothing.”

“I’m sick,” she said suddenly. “You can’t hurt somebody who’s sick.” “You’ll be sicker if you give me any more trouble.” He wrenched her violently after him and hastily dragged her toward the corner of the kitchen and the shape of the vehicle in the blackness beyond. Off balance, she stumbled after him, choking, trying to find her voice. She fell to her knees on the gravel. As he pulled her upright, she tore free. She tried to scream but felt his hand smashing across her face.

She sobbed. “No, Wash, no-“

He had her about the waist, off her feet. She tried to tear at him, tried to block, but he continued with her toward the blackness. There was no sound but their breathing and his feet biting the gravel, and then there was a shaft of light behind, a door slamming, other feet.

Wash dropped her and whirled about, too late to lift his hands, as Horace’s fist exploded in his vision. The blow sent Wash reeling backward, crashing into the side of the car. Grotesquely, he hung there, then slipped down to the ground. Horace was over him again. Groggily, Wash pawed for his legs, missed, and received the full impact of Horace’s shoe on his jaw.

By the time Wash had brought himself to a sitting position, the pair of them were beyond the bright area and out of sight. Wash touched his mouth, a meaty mass, then considered the palm of his hand that now held his blood and a broken tooth. He blinked incredulously. All this, and she wasn’t even a good lay.

When Horace reached the car, Naomi’s hysteria had subsided. Until then, she had clutched him desperately, and wept, to the bewilderment of the parking attendant and a passing couple, and not once had she spoken a coherent word.

Paul was waiting with the car door open.

“Is she all right, Horace?”

“I think so, I caught up with them in the parking lot. I really slugged him.”

Horace worked her into the front seat, then pushed in beside her. “We’d better move,” said Paul. “We’ll have the whole gang on our necks.”

“I don’t think so,” said Horace. “One of the men in the orchestra told me where she was. For twenty bucks.”

Later, as they were driving alongside the bridle path through Beverly Hills, after she had wiped her eyes with Horace’s handkerchief, and blown her nose, Naomi spoke at last.

She pointed to the torn knees of her stockings. “Look at me,” she said.

‘You’re all right. That’s all that counts,” said Horace.

“Never leave me, Horace-never, never leave me.”

“Never, I promise.”

“I’ll do what you say-whatever you say. Get me an analyst, put me in a place, a sanitarium-have them help me, Horace. I want to be well, that’s all I want.”

He brought her close to him. “Everything’s going to be all right,

darling. From now on. Just leave it to me.” Her voice was muffled. “You won’t think of the other?” Horace’s eyes were full. But he tried to smile. “What other?” he asked.

After leaving Horace and Naomi at her house, Paul returned to the Villa Neapolis.

Now, trudging between the stately royal palms to the motel entrance, Paul thought once more of Kathleen. The incident in the car had been curious. As curious as her temper the first night he had met her. As curious, in fact, as the spontaneous kiss she had favored him with as he left her several hours before. And then, so long ago it seemed, the sex history she had recited at him through the screen. No truer woman on all the earth existed, of that he was certain, yet her history had been incredibly false. Or credibly false? It depended on the point of view. She seemed to care for him, that was evident, and he knew the churning excitement he felt this moment, thinking of her. Yet, between them, stood an unidentifiable barrier, as real as the cane and walnut folding screen that had separated them the day of the interview. Perhaps between every woman and man, there rose this screen, defying total intimacy. Perhaps between every woman and the entire world, there was a screen, always… .

At the reception desk, the night clerk, who resembled a retired jockey, gave him his key and a sealed envelope. Puzzled, Paul opened the envelope and extracted a penciled note.

“Paul,” it read, “Ackerman just called and is coming over. I’m anxious that you be present during this meeting. Whenever you return, come to my room. Urgent. G.G.C.”

The wall clock above the desk showed the small hand between the twelve and the one, nearer the one, and the big hand on the ten. Twelve-fifty. Could Dr. Chapman possibly want to see him at this hour?

Paul went outside, past the placid pool, then mounted the wooden staircase. At the door to Dr. Chapman’s suite, he paused and listened. There were voices behind the door. He knocked.

The door was opened by Dr. Chapman, whose casual blue smoking jacket did nothing to offset the tension at the corners of his mouth.

“Ah, Paul,” said Dr. Chapman. “I’m glad you made it before we broke up. You know Emil Ackerman-” he indicated the portly Ackerman, and then waved his hand at a small, slender young man, of college age, with a high head of hair combed back, bulging eyes, and a sallow face, slumped in the chair across the living room- “and his nephew, Mr. Sidney Ackerman.”

Paul crossed to shake Ackerman’s genial hand, and then went to the nephew, who tentatively made an effort to rise, and Paul shook his hand, too.

“Have a seat, Paul,” said Dr. Chapman. “We’re almost finished.”

Paul took a straight chair from the wall, carried it closer to the group, and sat down.

“I like to have Paul in on everything I do,” Dr. Chapman was telling Ackerman. “He has good judgment.”

“Maybe you better bring him up to date, George,” said Emil Ackerman.

Dr. Chapman bobbed his head. ”‘Yes, I intend to.” He shifted on the big chair toward Paul. “You know, of course, how deeply interested Emil is in our work.” ‘Yes,” said Paul, “I do.”

Ackerman beamed. The nephew, Sidney, scratched his scalp and worked his upper lip over his yellow buck teeth.

“I think, in a way, he’s appointed himself my West Coast representative,” said Dr. Chapman. Ackerman chuckled, pleased.

“At any rate, Paul, to make a long story short, Emil has been looking out for our interests and keeping an eye on the activities of his nephew Sidney.” “I’ve guided him every step of the way,” said Ackerman. “I’m sure you have, Emil,” Dr. Chapman agreed, projecting admiration. He sought Paul’s attention once more. “Sidney’s a sociology major at the university here. He graduates in two weeks. The young man’s ambition is to be associated with our project. Emil feels he can be most useful to us.” “I’m positive of it,” said Ackerman.

“I’ve tried to explain,” Dr. Chapman continued to Paul, “that our roster is temporarily filled, but, of course, we’ll be expanding very soon. He knows we have an impressive waiting list, many eminent scientists with excellent records-still, as Emil has pointed out, we dare not shut our eyes to fresh young minds, eager young newcomers.”

“Plenty of rookies have helped make pennant winners,” said Ackerman.

“Indeed they have,” agreed Dr. Chapman. Then to Paul: “I’ve been briefing Sidney on our operation, and I’ve been inquiring into his background. And that’s where we stand now.” He looked across the room at Sidney. “Perhaps you’d like to ask some questions of us?”

Sidney hoisted himself erect, crossed his legs, and then uncrossed them. He picked at his scalp nervously. “I read your books,” he said.

Dr. Chapman nodded paternally. “Good.”

“I’ve been wondering-what’s your next project?”

“We haven’t determined that yet, Sidney,” said Dr. Chapman. “We have several under consideration. We may undertake the whole subject of motherhood-a survey of mothers.”

“You mean, a lot of old women?”

“Not exactly. There are millions of young mothers, too-in fact, some very young ones. After that, we may tackle married men.”

“I’d like to be on the women survey,” Sidney said flatly. He grinned, revealing the protruding yellow teeth. “That’s normal, isn’t it, Doctor?”

The good-natured social expression on Dr. Chapman’s face hardened. He moved his bulk uneasily in his chair. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose it is.”

Paul tried to watch Sidney’s face without too obviously staring. Perhaps he was being unfair, but he felt that he had detected a bright, leering quality in the young man’s bulging eyes. There was about his manner, his voice, the rancid air of unhealthy sex. His questions reflected the voyeur, not the scientist. Paul had seen him before, in many places, lounging before small-town drugstores to comment on girls’ bosoms and legs, telling a dirty story as he cued the tip of his pool stick in some shadowed billiard parlor, standing at a magazine rack devouring the semi-nude reproductions of models and starlets. Paul decided: He thinks our project is like attending a daily stag film.

“Uncle Emil will tell you,” Sidney was saying, “I’ve always made a study of women. I’ve read everything that exists-history, biology, sociology.”

“That’s right, George,” Ackerman said to Dr. Chapman.

“I want to be part of your great movement,” Sidney went on. “I think when you can get women to talk about sexual intercourse, that’s an important advance. Like the survey you’re just finishing-it’s like the bachelor one you wrote about, isn’t it?”

“Yes” said Dr. Chapman quietly. “Well, I think that’s something,” said Sidney. He scratched his scalp with his nails. “Imagine getting women to talk about … about how they feel. They do, don’t they?” “Most of them,” said Dr. Chapman grimly, After ten more minutes, the meeting was concluded. Dr. Chapman and Paul walked Ackerman and Sidney down to the guest parking area, beside the top of the road, where Ackerman’s shining Cadillac stood alone, Before getting into the car, Ackerman looked at Dr. Chapman. “Well, George,” he said, “what do you think?” “You’re sure you want him in this kind of work?” asked Dr. Chapman. “It’s drudgery and exacting, you know.” “It’s what he wants. That’s the important thing, I think. En-“Mmm. All right, Emil. Let me see what I can work out. I’ll do After the Cadillac had gone down the hill, Paul and Dr. Chap man remained standing by the roadside, in the cool night, Paul hated to look at Dr. Chapman, but then he did. He knew what his eyes sought: the crack in the armor. As he had waited to find it in Dr. Jonas, and had not, he waited now for sight of it in the giant figure who, heretofore, had been invincible. He waited, his chest constricted by the suspense. He waited, “Imagine the nerve of him,” Dr. Chapman said angrily, “trying to foist that snot-nosed pervert on us. Did you hear the little fiend? He thinks we’re staging sex circuses and films.” He took Paul’s arm and guided him toward the motel. “Remember, I once told you Ackerman’s in the business of making people beholden to him. Well, this time, I assure you, he’s not getting paid off. I’d sooner junk, the whole project than take that little brute on. I’ll placate Uncle Emil with a letter that will be a masterpiece of generalities. I’ll tell him we’re keeping Sidney on file. He’s got as much chance of getting out of that file as out of a time capsule buried in concrete. Right, Paul?” “Right,” said Paul, and even on this moonless night, he could see that Dr. Chapman’s armor shone brighter than ever.

TERESA HARNISH had just swung the convertible to the curbing, preparatory to delivering Geoffrey to the art shop, when the announcer on the car radio began the weather forecast.

Geoffrey had opened the door to leave, but now, one foot still on the convertible floor board, he listened to the forecast. “… although today, Friday, June fifth, promises to be the hottest June fifth in twenty years, with the temperature reaching a high of ninety-five or thereabouts, there is every likelihood that by nightfall the temperature will drop to the low seventies.”

Teresa turned off the radio, impatient for Geoffrey to leave. The forecast had made her aware of her discomfort. The boiling air had the consistency of an updraft from a blast furnace, dry and scorching. Geoffrey stepped out of the car and squinted toward the sun.